Goodbye Badge Scanner, Hello Leads

Remember the last time you were on booth duty at a trade show, scanning attendees’ badges with the badge scanner provided by the event organizer? If your experience was anything like ours, it looked like this: With just one scanner in the booth, a line often formed as everybody waited to use the same device. To supplement the basic information provided by their badges, you frequently wrote notes on the backs of attendees’ business cards. At the end of the show, you handed the badge scanner back to the event organizer. And waited.

A week later, the event organizer sent you an Excel file with the attendees’ badge information. You took that Excel file and imported the leads into your CRM system. Finally, after seven days or more, you sent out your follow-up emails saying, “Thanks for visiting our booth.” By that time, of course, the attendees have likely forgotten who you are and what you do. And you’ve likely lost all the business card notes because, let’s face it, nobody wants to key in information collected from the hundreds of people and coordinate it with the records in their CRM system.

What if you could replace that dedicated badge scanner with a smart, mobile application that connects directly to your CRM application?

With a badge scanning app running on your smartphone, you can scan badges at any time, from anywhere on the event floor and beyond. In fact, everyone in your company who has a smartphone can run this mobile app, which means everybody can scan badges. Once the badge is scanned, the app automatically extracts all of the information and presents it to you on the mobile device screen. That means you can take notes, add tasks and assign a lead owner — on the spot, while the customer is there with you.

You can also connect the mobile app to backend workflow systems set up in your Zoho CRM system. For instance, whenever you scan a badge at a trade show or event, that information is entered as a new lead in the CRM system and a “thank you” email is sent out immediately, not seven days later.

This is exactly what we’re delivering with Leads. This mobile app complements Zoho CRM to give you immediate access to, and let you take immediate action on, the leads you gather at a trade show or event.

Leads supports QR code scanning, but it’s smart enough to recognize when it can’t scan a QR code. At that point, Leads automatically switches to OCR and scans the readable badge information like first name, last name and company name.

Leads also has a built-in card scanner, so you can take a photo of a business card and automatically populate the related Zoho CRM fields with the card information. Leads will also save an image of the business card itself to Zoho CRM. If the business card includes the person’s Twitter handle, Leads will automatically collect the associated Twitter profile picture and add it to the lead record created in Zoho CRM. You can also enter the Twitter handle manually.

We launched Leads at Zoholics this past week, and all exhibitors at this year’s show used the Leads app to scan the badges of Zoholics attendees. If you’re ready to make the move to a smart, mobile badge scanning app, try Leads. It’s available immediately on iPhone for a one-time fee of $4.99. Android version is in the works.

Looking at trying this at an upcoming trade show that wants you to rent their scanners. They use a bar code. Is the bar code system universal as in they programed the contact info into the bar code and this app will be able to extract it?

Leads application currently supports pdf417 barcodes and QR codes which are made up of plain text. The types of barcodes/QR codes will vary and differ depending upon the event organiser, please contact the event organiser regarding the type of barcode used in the badge and also if possible please send us a sample image of the barcode to isupport@zohocorp.com. So that we can analyse and let you know if the Leads app is able to scan the barcode.

No Droid application? Come on now, Samsung and all of their smart phones are dominating out IPhones.. Lets show the love for both platforms please otherwise you may lose out on many great customers who want to use your system but cant simply because you only offer it for ONE platform (I phone)…. We live in a very diverse world, time you accomodate.

I have 3 questions: (1) WHY does this app only scan QR CODES and not ALL types of barcodes? This question relates to the fact that companys attend tradeshows which employ VARIOUS barcodes on the badges. I understand that it automatically switches to scanning the name and company, BUT it does not have the capability to scan ALL information the attendees provide at check-in (e-mail, phone number, website, position etc.) as this information is NOT displayed on the badge itself.. (2) If you purchase this app, do you need to have the MOBILE subscription activated for that particular sales person (account holder) for it to work? and…(3) Why would you have TWO apps that scan business cards ? ..

DeLisa, We are actively working on improving our OCR quality, please write to us at isupport@zohocorp.com so we can take your input to better validate our OCR and at the same time to help you resolve your issues in Leads. Sathya, Zoho iApps

It’s true. The app is useless. What a disappointment! How do you describe the problem? What’s to tell? Scan a card and see for yourself. The app doesn’t work. That says it all. I have an iPhone 4S and I love WorldCard Mobile. Virtually no editing after a scan. Excellent OCR!DeLisa

Wayne,Can you please provide more details about the problems you are having with card scanning? Please email us at isupport at zohocorp dot com. We haven’t seen many such issues from our existing users.

This app is HORRIBLE. Don’t waste your time or money. It can’t handle the simplest of business cards without making many, many errors and omissions. It also lacks so many features that other competitors provide.Best to use a third party app like CamCard which will save your data in the iPhone Address Book; Then fire up the Zoho CRM iphone app. (GREAT APP); select “Leads” from the drop down (from the top left); then select the “+” sign at the top right; then select “Import from Address Book”. You now have your “Lead” in ZOHO CRM. (don’t forget to sync)Zoho Leads SHOULD NOT be in the Apps Store in its current state.

It would be great when you release new apps that you have them for both iPhone and Android devices, instead of the Android users having to wait weeks/months to test and use these products.It seems like a great product and I’d love to share this concept with my clients, but I can’t test it without the Android version, and many of my clients are on Androids as well.

I am hoping to use the leads app for an upcoming exhibition but some of the mixed feedback is scaring me. I need to be sure that the qr codes are properly read and the data really does go into zoho crm. can we have a quick chat about it? Or maybe you can put my mind at rest

Thanks for your interest in the Leads application. Leads application currently supports and scans the QR codes which are made up of plain text. And we assure you that the plain text QR codes will be scanned properly and the data obtained from it will be saved into Zoho CRM. If you need more clarification, please write to us at isupport@zohocorp.com.